Lecture by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Kailash Satyarthi held at Yale-NUS College

Nobel Peace Prize laureate Kailash Satyarthi discusses the potential of the youth. Image by Raghaw Khattri for Yale-NUS College.

On 14 September 2022, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Kailash Satyarthi spoke at Yale-NUS College on “Harnessing the power within: Youths lead the change”. The student lecture, part of the Nobel Prize Dialogue Singapore 2022, was attended by the National University of Singapore (NUS) and Yale-NUS students. In his opening address for the lecture, Dean of NUS College Simon Chesterman expressed how NUS College and Yale-NUS have the same mission to empower students, and that he hoped events like this would inspire young people to bring about positive change in the world.

Mr Satyarthi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014, jointly with Malala Yousafzai, for his dedication towards promoting the rights of all children to education and safety as well as preventing the exploitation of children and young people. In his work, Mr Satyarthi has directly rescued more than 100,000 children from child labour, slavery, trafficking, and other forms of exploitation.

At the lecture, Mr Satyarthi spoke about how Singapore is a dream city for many people, and that the collective dreams, determination, and diligence of young people made Singapore what it is today. The country’s achievements were made possible by the knowledge and freedom young people possessed here. However, there were still many around the world who were still tied to the shackles of slavery today. In his work, he encountered many children who had been enslaved for so long that they did not know how to eat a banana or were too frightened to sit in a car.

Mr Satyarthi narrated the story of Devli, a girl he rescued from slavery. After she was saved, Devli found the determination to go through rehabilitation as she wanted to give back and liberate other children like her. Eventually, she went on to speak at a meeting at the United Nations (UN) along with Mr Satyarthi, and together, they motivated the UN to commit US$45 million in funding towards education in Africa. Just as how Devli had been empowered to help others, Mr Satyarthi believes that everyone has the potential to empower others to make a difference.

Mr Satyarthi also spoke about the potential that youths have in bringing change to the world. According to Mr Satyarthi, a hero is someone who harnesses their power for a better world, and that everyone, including the attendees at the event, can become a hero. To him, everyone in the audience was like a candle with potential, and he was here to ignite their drive to contribute to social change.

Mr Satyarthi spoke humorously and often narrated his personal life stories. For example, he joked about how his childhood dream was to meet a Nobel laureate, and it only took him fifty years when he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for him to finally do so. Apart from students, many members of the Yale-NUS community attended the event. Assistant Professor of Social Sciences (Psychology) Jean Liu, who brought her young son to the talk, was happy that her son could learn from and be inspired by Mr Satyarthi.

Tanya Sharma (Class of 2023) said, “I loved the talk with Mr Satyarthi! I was so inspired by his humility, humour, and his larger metaphor of how we’re all candles waiting to create change. During the Q&A session, I asked him a question about how we, as students, should decide which cause to commit to, and I learned a lot about what it means to tangibly create change by combining our interests, skills, and a general sense of hope for a better world.”